The prairies were dust. Day after day, summer after summer, the scorching winds blew the dust and the sun was brassy in a yellow sky. Crop after crop failed. Again and again the barren land must be mortgaged for taxes and food and next year's seed. The agony of hope ended when there was not harvest and no more credit, no money to pay interest and taxes; the banker took the land. Then the bank failed.

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968), U.S. author. On the Way Home, ch. 1 (1962).

Lane, the only child of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the famous "Little House" books for children, was recalling her and her parents' years in South Dakota. In 1897, drought forced them to travel by covered wagon to the Ozarks in search of a new life.